惹味居 Re Wei Ju is located at San Chun 三乡 (three villages), Zhuhai, a restaurant where locals eat. On Dian Ping, China’s Yelp, the restaurant is not rated highly: it receives an overall score of 3/5. As I scroll through the comments, many people gave it 1/5 because they commented that the service is atrocious. To me, the service is okay. They are definitely not extremely courteous, but they do their jobs efficiently.

Zhuhai is in the Guangdong Province formerly known as Canton, and Cantonese is known for their dim sum. Not sure if this restaurant serves authentic dim sum because my experience lies mostly in Singapore but the dim sum here is quite good, and some items are even better than Singapore’s.

The main difference is that the dim sum here is more homely, so the skin may be very slightly thicker. But because it is more homely than Singapore’s dim sum, you can taste the integrity of flavours here.

For example, the har gow (prawn dumpling) here is not mixed with minced meat, like some places in Singapore. It’s two whole prawns that create a great umami flavour.

The “lionhead” (pictured above), or just meatballs, are really fantastic. They add bits of chestnuts so it has a terrific texture and there is so much fat (lard?) which gives a lot of flavour. Not sure if they put any flour or additives to pad the meatball, but it certainly tastes fantastic.

One thing that you should generally avoid eating in China is beef, especially hamburgers. Their quality of beef is bad in general and they need to cook the beef thoroughly, so here, while the marinate is just ok, the beef is stringy and of low quality. Not worth ordering.

I think the above photo shows cheong fun with liver. I like Tim Ho Wan’s rendition, but here, the liver is overcooked (well, it’s China, things need to be overcooked), and becomes rubbery. The cheong fun is starchy, and slightly elastic, which I don’t like.

The pan-fried carrot cake is outstanding. It’s wobbly and has a nice sticky texture which is contrasted with the pan-fried parts. You can taste the realness of the radish here.

The restaurant calls this a Thai dessert, which is just sweet glutinous rice rolled in coconut flakes. It is alright.

Finally in the finale of “Who wore it best?,” the walnut bun or Klingon, I think the Klingon may have won. My colleague said that the walnut bun is her favourite, which heightened my expectations. But the skin is too thick, and too hard, and the walnut paste is strange, almost artificial. There are bits of walnut within, which I usually would like because it provides texture, but the bits are in a weird size that fits into the crevice of my teeth and that becomes irritating.

But on the whole, this is a pretty decent place and if you happen to be nearby, it’s definitely worth coming. We paid ¥50 per person for a table of four.